Society's ChildS


Bomb

Kabul residents protest against presence of foreign troops after Taliban attack


Sputnik
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 17:32 UTC
kabul attack
© REUTERS / Omar Sobhani
The residents of the Afghan capital's PD9 district took to the streets on Tuesday following a deadly Taliban attack to protest against the presence of foreign troops in the area, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

"There have been frequent bombings of this camp [of troops], which destroyed our homes, severely injuring the people living in this area. People have lost their lives and many more have been injured because of this. The camp is set up in a residential area and should be evacuated from the district. If the camp is not evacuated, people will continue their protests, as well," local resident Mohammad Kamal Afghan said.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has condemned the Taliban's deadly attack and called it an act of terrorism.

"This is not the first time that the Taliban use such tactics, but the security forces cannot prevent them. Since the intelligence activities are weak, the Taliban easily perform their operations and reach their goals. On the other hand, the Taliban do not pay attention to the lives of civilians. Carrying out such heavy attacks in the city is a massacre," a former chief of the Afghan Air Force, Atiqullah Amarkhail, said.

On Tuesday morning, residents of the district took to the streets and blocked the highway east of Kabul, demanding that foreign troops be removed from the area.
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Evil Rays

South Africa descends into chaos amid widespread riots, looting and violence against foreigners


RT
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 17:28 UTC
south africa riots
© AFP / Michele Spatari
Police have used tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets to try and quell an ongoing outbreak of violence, rioting and looting across South Africa. So far, over 90 people have been arrested.

Rioters looted shops, created flaming barricades on roads and engaged in street fights with police, as attacks on immigrants and foreign-owned businesses increase. Some 50 businesses were looted and damaged on Sunday alone. It's the second outbreak of such violence in the country in the space of a week.

David Tembe, Chief of the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) urged motorists to exercise extreme caution on the highways and to avoid the Maritzburg street area entirely.
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Ambulance

Another mass stabbing at a Chinese primary school - 8 dead, 2 injured

Alice Yan
South China Morning Post
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 17:13 UTC
chinese stabbing school police
© MiaopaiPolice vehicles attend the scene of a stabbing attack in Baiyangping
A 40-year-old man was detained after eight children were stabbed to death in a knife attack at a primary school in central China on Monday, local authorities said.

Two other children were being treated for injuries following the incident at Chaotangpo Primary School in the town of Baiyangping, in Hubei province, on the first day of the new academic year.

The suspect, who police said was a local man surnamed Yu, was found by officers at the scene.

A spokeswoman for Enshi Central Hospital said wounded pupils were being treated there, while the local government said it was offering counselling.

The Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported that Yu had been given an early release from prison last year after serving a sentence for attempted murder. A man from the same village as Yu said the conviction had been for an incident in which Yu gouged out his former girlfriend's eye.

"After he returned home last year, he displayed some mental problems," the man, whose name was not given, was quoted as saying.

Knife attacks on schoolchildren are a regular occurrence in mainland China, with the perpetrators often saying they are motivated by a desire to take revenge on society.

Comment: The U.S. has mass shootings, China has mass stabbings. For example, over the course of 2010-2012, a string of around 10 such school attacks left at least 25 dead and 115 injured. But they continue, and not just in schools. Here's a selection:

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Bizarro Earth

Tennessee elementary school bans 'Harry Potter' books because they contain 'actual curses and spells'

Ebony Bowen
New York Post
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 16:38 UTC
Harry Potter books
© The Washington Post/Getty Images
Students at a Catholic elementary school in Tennessee will no longer be able to borrow copies of the Harry Potter book series after a pastor there outlawed them — claiming they contain real curses and spells.

The Rev. Dan Reehil informed St. Edward Catholic School parents that the seven-tome fantasy series would be banned from the Nashville school's library after he consulted with several exorcists in the US and Italy who suggested they be removed.

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception," Reehil told parents in an undated email, the Tennessean reported Saturday.
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Bacon

Western Australian vegan takes neighbors to court over smell of barbecue

Lisa Martin
The Guardian
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 17:04 UTC
bbq fish barbecue
© puhhha/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A vegan in Western Australia who took her neighbours to the supreme court with complaints about the smell of meat and fish from their barbecues has said she is considering further potential legal action.

The court and the state's administrative tribunal have both thrown out Cilla Carden's complaints about her neighbours, including their cooking smells, cigarette smoke, chairs scraping on concrete, reflective light and the sounds of children playing basketball and pet birds.


Comment: Maybe she wouldn't be so irritable if she started eating meat? Lack of proper nutrition can do a number on your brain and emotional regulation.


Carden, a massage therapist who lives at Girrawheen in Perth's north, says the ongoing dispute has robbed her of quality of life and claimed her neighbours actions are deliberate.

"They've put it there so I smell fish, all I can smell is fish," Carden told Nine. "I can't enjoy my backyard, I can't go out there."

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Heart - Black

'This place was hell': Julian Assange's brother on prison conditions


RT
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 17:00 UTC
assange
© Sputnik
Gabriel Shipton, brother of jailed WikiLeaks co-founder, told a rally in London that the British prison system is "working its hardest at crushing any hope" Julian Assange has left.

Speaking at a rally outside the British Home Office in Westminster on Monday, Shipton described an emotional visit to his weakened and emaciated brother, currently serving a 50-week sentence at Belmarsh prison, ostensibly for skipping bail in 2012.

After embracing his brother for what he thought may be the last time, Shipton described speaking to his daughter afterwards, who wondered why her uncle was locked up. "'Has he done something bad, dad?' she asked. I struggled to explain in a way a five-year-old would understand."
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Sherlock

Texas gunman was fired from his job before rampage, made several calls to the FBI and 911

Lucinda Holt & Mary Fernandez
The Independent
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 14:23 UTC
crime scene
© APPolice surround the area behind Cinergy in Odessa
The 36-year-old man who terrorised two West Texas towns with an assault-style rifle on Saturday had been fired from his trucking job a few hours before he led authorities on a chaotic high-speed chase that ended with his death and the deaths of seven others.

Along a 15-mile stretch between the sister cities of Midland and Odessa, the aftermath of the gunman's rampage — in which he indiscriminately fired at motorists and police officers with an AR-15-style rifle while driving — clashed with the typically serene and dusty rural landscape of the region.

On Sunday, authorities continued to collect evidence from more than 15 crime scenes, scattered along highways, car dealerships and shopping malls, marked by police tape, bullet-riddled cars and a wrecked postal van the gunman had hijacked.

Authorities initially refused to name the gunman on Sunday, not wanting to give him "any notoriety for what he did," said Michael Gerke, the police chief of Odessa. But they later issued a statement identifying the gunman as Seth Aaron Ator, of Odessa.

Police officers shot and killed Ator in the parking lot of a movie theatre in Odessa, ending a shooting rampage that began after authorities had tried to pull him over for failing to signal a left turn.

Comment: According to RT, the shooter made several calls to 911 and the FBI before his rampage:
Shortly before he randomly shot dozens of people in West Texas on Saturday, the gunman called police, the FBI and 911 dispatchers, and made "rambling" statements in the wake of his job loss. His employer called 911 too, in vain.

Hours before carrying out the mass shooting that left seven dead and over 20 injured in Odessa, Texas, the gunman, Seth Aaron Ator, had made erratic calls to 911 and the FBI, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke told reporters on Monday.

FBI special agent Christopher Combs described Ator's call to the bureau as "rambling." It's been confirmed the calls were made after the shooter lost his job at Journey Oil Field Services on Saturday morning.

Ator's employer also tried to call 911, Gerke said, but he had already left his workplace by the time police arrived.
More on the shooter from the New York Post:
A neighbor of the Odessa, Texas, mass shooter says she reported him to police last month — after he threatened her with a rifle for leaving trash near his property — but cops couldn't find his house on account of it having no GPS address or electricity.

The woman told CNN that Seth Ator, 36, would often sit on top of his home and shoot animals at night, which he would then retrieve afterward.

She said cops tried to confront Ator following her report to them last month, but his property didn't show up on GPS and was difficult to find.

Ator would often sleep inside his Toyota Camry with the heat on when the weather would get too cold, the woman said. He also had no running water.

Another neighbor told NewsWest9 that she, too, was visited by Ator — who showed up at her door with his rifle. It was unclear what sparked that incident. The woman said Ator owned at least two guns.

Cops shot and killed the Texas madman following his shooting rampage in Odessa on Saturday. He managed to kill seven people and wounded more than 20 others.


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Russian Flag

Hollywood's continued demonization of Russians is worse than during the Cold War

Daniel Chalyan
Russia Beyond
Tue, 16 Jul 2019 14:02 UTC
actor soldier
© Donovan Marsh/Millennium Films, 2018
To most of you the portrayal of Soviets (or Russians - who cares!) as backward evil-doers by Hollywood is nothing surprising. A new view is gaining traction that the silly stereotyping is fizzling out. I argue the opposite: it's entered a new, more nuanced phase.

The stereotype of the Russian bad guy in Hollywood is dying. At least, that's what the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian version of The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Maria Lemesheva, boldly proclaimed in 2017: "I've seen... in the movie with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp ('The Tourist') where a Russian general was some sort of a bad guy, the audience was laughing while watching the film. Our public always has a cheerful and philosophical attitude towards such movies. And we also take it as irony. But I think that tendency to portray Russians as the bad guys is dying," she told the Indo-Asian News Service. I gather that these remarks were meant to downplay one of the most enduring creative techniques in Hollywood history. To say that I was taken aback by them is an understatement.

Apparently, because Russians are so giddy and deep with their understanding of other people's motives - or because we can take a punch and treat it 'philosophically' - it makes no sense to treat Hollywood attacks on an entire culture with any real seriousness? The richest film industry in the world doesn't just make movies for the pleasure of it. You may yourself have participated in many a conversation online where somebody says "it's just humor", "it's just a movie" or "it's just a joke." First of all, nothing is "just" anything if there is massive money involved. Do yourself a huge favor and forget the poisonous notion that entertainment is just made for the hell of it. Money has to serve a purpose.
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No Entry

'Bastion of bigotry': University of Kansas faculty want Chick-fil-A banned from campus

Caleb Parke
Fox News
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 13:54 UTC
Chick-Fil-A restaurant
A few Kansas University faculty members are not fans of allowing Chick-fil-A to be served on campus because they believe the chain violates "safety and inclusion".

The faculty council, filled with "extreme frustration," wants America's favorite restaurant removed from campus for being a "bastion of bigotry" after KU administrators relocated a Chick-fil-A from a basement to "prime real estate" on campus to the Memorial Union. But worse yet, to the council, is the "Chick-fil-A Coin Toss" at the start of the Jayhawks' football home games.

"The culture of Chick-fil-A fosters hate and discrimination on multiple levels," the Sexuality & Gender Diversity Faculty and Staff Council wrote in a two-page letter, accusing university leaders of being "more concerned about money and corporate sponsorship than the physical, emotional, and mental well being of marginalized and LGBTQ people."

Comment: See also:

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Music

Roger Waters performs Wish You Were Here in honor of Julian Assange


RT
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 13:40 UTC
Roger Waters
© Global Look Press / ZUMAPRESS / Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Watch rock 'n' roll legend and Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters perform his hit track 'Wish You Were Here' outside the UK Home Office, during a rally in honor of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange.

Taking a makeshift stage right outside the British interior ministry office, the rocker's performance is intended as a message of solidarity with Assange, who was arrested in April and now faces extradition to the United States. A long-standing supporter of Assange and WikiLeaks, Waters said he was "ashamed to be an Englishman" following the transparency activist's arrest.

Comment: See also:

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